One Man's Meat

It's the birthday of Elwyn Brooks White, better known as E.B. White (books by this author), born in Mount Vernon, New York (1899). He wrote for The New Yorker for nearly 60 years, and married its first fiction editor, Katharine Angell, in 1929. The couple left New York City for a farmhouse in Maine, but White kept writing essays, including a series on farming for Harper's; these were collected in the book One Man's Meat (1942). He wrote a piece called "Death of a Pig" for Atlantic Monthly, about his unsuccessful attempt to save a dying pig. "I discovered [.] that once having given a pig an enema there is no turning back, no chance of resuming one of life's more stereotyped roles." Four years later, White published his best-known book, Charlotte's Web (1952). Beloved by young and old alike, it's the story of Wilbur the pig and his friend Charlotte, a clever spider who helps save him from slaughter.

White also gave his name to the standard English-language style manual, The Elements of Style. William Strunk Jr. wrote the first edition of the book in 1918. White revived, revised, and expanded the style guide in 1959; with his significant input, The Elements of Style became known informally as "Strunk and White." In 2011, Time named the manual one of the 100 best and most influential books written in English since 1923. White himself once said: "It's a funny little book, and it keeps going on. Occasionally I get irate letters from people who find a boo-boo in it, but many more from people who find it useful." White includes a wealth of writing advice, including: "Do not affect a breezy style; use orthodox spelling; do not explain too much; avoid fancy words; do not take shortcuts at the cost of clarity; prefer the standard to the offbeat; make sure the reader knows who is speaking; do not use dialect; revise and rewrite."

- Writer's Almanac